The different parties are lining up on this Speakership showdown. House Democrats position appears unanimous and categorical. No help for McCarthy whatsoever. Every member of the caucus will vote to oust McCarthy.
A couple points.
Continue reading “Dems Make Their Offer: Nothing”A D.C. federal judge called out the latest bid at endless delay from attorneys for Donald Trump.
Continue reading “Judge Calls Trump’s Bluff On Security Clearances For His Lawyers”
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Nothing happened inside the courtroom on the first day of the New York state civil fraud trial of Donald Trump that was as important as the attacks he launched in the courthouse hallways on the judge and the legal system:
Trump’s latest attack comes as Special Counsel Jack Smith is pushing U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to issue a limited gag order against Trump in his Jan. 6 case. Add this to the long list of recent examples.
Why won’t the New York state judge doing anything about it? He might. But, remember, this is a judge-tried case. There’s no jury pool for Trump to taint, and no jury for him to tamper with. So there’s not a direct, immediate threat to the integrity of the proceedings.
When you try to apply the tired old campaign and election tropes to cover rising authoritarianism, attacks on the legitimacy of the courts and other democratic institutions, and the use of mass media to stoke anger and resentment in service of your own business, legal and political ends, you get badly framed stories like these:
It’s only been eight years since Trump emerged as a national political figure.
Special Counsel Jack Smith keeps on calling out Donald Trump and his delay tactics for what they are. Yesterday, Smith landed a one–two punch on Trump’s elaborate effort to push back his April 2024 trial date in the Jan. 6 case in DC.
The former Trump chief of staff and cabinet secretary finally goes on the record with some of his worst Trump stories.
A very intriguing recusal by Justice Clarence Thomas in a case brought by former Trump attorney John Eastman, who unsuccessfully sought to keep his emails from the Jan. 6 committee.
You’ll recall that a federal judge in California ultimately ruled that attorney-client privilege didn’t apply because Eastman and Trump used their relationship to engage in criminal activity. The Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning the lower court ruling stands as is.
It’s not clear why Thomas recused, but Eastman, a former Thomas clerk, was corresponding with Thomas’ wife Ginni in the post-election period in 2020.
I’ve been waiting for this dismantling of “polarization” for a long time. Thomas Zimmer really brings it in the second installment of his manifesto on the subject.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filed his motion to vacate last night, the first step in his attempted ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker of the House. I don’t have any special insights or predictions here. I’m going to sit back and watch. In the words of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA): “Not my monkey; not my circus.”
The comedic value is high:
The flailing is real, on both sides, meaning things are very fluid. A vote on the motion could come at any time over the next 48 hours.
A sampling of the coverage:
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) was carjacked in DC’s Navy Yard neighborhood Monday night. He was unhurt, and his car was later recovered.
The president’s son is scheduled to enter a not guilty plea in person in Delaware federal court today on gun charges.
Meanwhile, DC U.S. Attorney Matt Graves is scheduled to sit today for a voluntary interview with the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee, which is looking for more ways to make political hay.
A 22-year-old Jewish man is suing Elon Musk for defamation after Musk personally promoted on Twitter a false conspiracy theory that the man was a federal agent involved with a neo-Nazi group.
The lawyer handling the lawsuit is Mark Bankston, the Texas attorney who won a $45 million judgment against Alex Jones on behalf of two Sandy Hook parents.
Michael Lewis timed today’s release of his new book on crypto-king Sam Bankman-Fried with the start of SBF’s trial. Lewis sat down with 60 Minutes and talked about the countless hours he spent “riding shotgun” with SBF as his fame and then his life exploded:
A link to the full report, where you can search by county or census tract.
I just want to make sure that you saw that the Nobel Prize in physiology was shared by Katalin Karikó. It was Karikó who was ignored, belittled, denied tenure, and ultimately left Penn’s medical school despite the groundbreaking mRNA research that ultimately led years later to the COVID vaccines. From the Glamour profile of her in 2021:
That morning at the lab, Karikó’s old boss had come to see her off. She did not tell him what a terrible mistake he was making in letting her leave. She didn’t gloat about her future at BioNTech, a pharmaceuticals firm that millions now associate with lifesaving vaccines but was then a relative upstart in the field. Instead the woman who had bounced from department to department, with no tenure prospects and never earning over $60,000 a year, said with total confidence: “In the future, this lab will be a museum. Don’t touch it.”
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The insider newsletters are out with updates and vote counts on Matt Gaetz’s motion to vacate. The more detailed one is Punchbowl. It has Gaetz already holding four votes including his own to oust McCarthy. Three more lean toward ouster and another five are considering it. On its face this isn’t great for McCarthy. Gaetz needs just one more vote to oust McCarthy if every member is in attendance – a non-trivial if.
Continue reading “Stay Skeptical”There’s a lot of discussion now about whether Democrats should directly or indirectly bail out Kevin McCarthy. Many reports say it will be necessary. I thought I should add that nothing I’ve written about this topic in recent days should give the impression that anyone should be rooting for McCarthy over the Freedom Caucus. There are no good guys in this story. But some are more ridiculous than others. Matt Gaetz for one.
A few thoughts on this clown show.
First: Let’s not forget how we got here.
Continue reading “Let It Burn?”Delay, delay, delay.
Continue reading “Prosecutors Call Out Trump Delay Tactics In Jan. 6 Case”I thought and perhaps hoped Matt Gaetz’s failed rebellion would go a bit longer. But it’s collapsing even more rapidly than I imagined. This afternoon Ralph Norman, one of the deans of the anti-McCarthy clown car, has given the thumbs down to Gaetz’s plan for a motion to vacate. Chip Roy has done the same. Gaetz is now out begging for support on Twitter.
He might get it since he only needs three or perhaps four to join him. (Rep. Eli Crane suggested on Twitter yesterday that he was up for it. Depends on whether we assume he’s in Gaetz’s corner.) But the folks who need to be on board for a real rebellion are giving the whole thing the thumbs down. This leaves Gaetz isolated. I’m skeptical that even the most hardened House GOP freaks are going to want to join him for this embarrassment.
Right after House Republicans went low energy and agreed to a clean 45-day continuing resolution over the weekend, Rep. Matt Gaetz announced he would lower the boom on Speaker McCarthy by filing a so-called “motion to vacate” this week. But that threat already seems shaky at best. There are already almost certainly fanciful threats circulating in right-wing media that Republicans will try to expel Gaetz from Congress if the long-simmering ethics investigation into his druggie, teen-dating past finds evidence of wrongdoing. This report started at Fox and got picked up in the New York Post, Daily Mail, et. al. More significant, very few of the hardliners Gaetz will need are coming to his banner. As far as I can tell only Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona has suggested he might be on board.
Don’t hold your breath thinking that Republicans are going to expel Matt Gaetz. That’s BS fed to pliant press. But the attack articles in the right-wing press confirms what is true, which is that a lot of Republicans are seriously pissed at Gaetz for his central role in their latest highwire debacle.
To make sense of his threats we need to discuss the mechanics of how that threat works.
Continue reading “Gaetz Threat Already Crumbling Apart”Justice Clarence Thomas recused himself from consideration of a matter involving Trump attorney John Eastman, the Supreme Court said Monday in declining to take up Eastman’s case.
Continue reading “Ooo, What’s This? Justice Thomas Recuses From Eastman Case”California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will appoint EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the remaining term of Sen. Dianne Feinstein who passed away last week.
Continue reading “Newsom To Appoint Laphonza Butler To Feinstein’s Seat”
